Beginner's Guide

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-SHsU0tqtdAnxFCkw16zy-0UiEOmzI2_4KnsV7P2E-M/edit?usp=sharing - link to the text format of this guide (easier on the eyes for some)

= Intro to Archlight = Archlight is more of its own game than it is a Tibia Clone/OT, and it takes heavy inspiration from ARPGs such as Path of Exile and Diablo 3 while still having a lot of RPG elements from MMOs you might be familiar with. In this guide I’ll cover how to get started, as well as include links to important resources you can and should take advantage of. Forming alliances and working together with other players is a key part of Archlight, and while you can make a good amount of progress alone, the game is designed and balanced around tackling content as a group. Don't sweat if you don't make allies right off the bat, there is still plenty to do alone and lots of ways to improve your character without help from others, and there is rarely a shortage of content - particularly for new players. This guide is meant to give you a basic understanding of the core mechanics and features of the game, but it does cover a lot of material, so you may find it easiest to skim and return here to reference particular things as you delve deeper.

Have fun!  -Odin 

Pre awakening leveling
You begin at level 20 with basic equipment and poor skills, but the rate of improvement for low levels is pretty good, you will find yourself getting stronger fairly quickly. The home page of the wiki has shortcuts to each Vocation's page, which includes all the information about spells and recommended stats. At the start of the Era (Archlight’s Seasons), experience rates are much lower than they are later on (they’re increased up to 300%) but progress is still fast. You may wish to spend a day at the trainers either online if you can, or offline training if not, before you dive in - but if you’re in a rush to get going, you can still tackle some of the easier spawns in the monster portals area. Completing tasks from the task counter will reward you with experience (occasionally other rewards) and a small amount of energy. Energy is used in gathering professions, which are critical to your progression, so be sure to get it where you can! Here’s a link to the early monster portals. Energy is gained at a rate of 20 energy every 2 hours, and 30 every 2 hours once awakened. The cap for energy is 1000 points.

You also have the option to spend some coins in the in game store to buy skill boosts, and even a starter prismatic set to get yourself ahead of the curve. From 20-1500, you will focus on tasking, and doing as many solo dungeons as possible. For this reason, it’s often a good idea to focus on survivability over damage early on, so that you can handle the dungeons. Magic users in particular like the Sorcerer and Bard should try to get some mana regeneration and max mana as soon as possible. I’ll discuss different ways to get those things later.

Some monster tasks that you can receive from the counter will take you into a zone which also contains a secondary stat point task - completing those tasks will grant you a permanent +1 stat boost to the stat of your choice, and are very much worth doing whenever possible. Some examples of early ones are Orcs, Pirates, Dragon Lords (deep cave), Heroes, etc. The task counters start off with tasks for easy - low mid range monsters, while the middle counter contains some harder tasks, leading up to the top counter with tasks that can bring you up to level 1500. All the way at the north side of the room is the Test of Strength task counter, which can be started at 750, and gives you large boosts to stats in addition to experience.

Every 100 levels, you will receive a prompt from the in game help windows that rewards you for your efforts with various things like money, some gear, items like beginner mimic scrolls, regrade keys, and always a silver progress token, which grants a random amount of boost points - either 25/50/75/100 points. 60 Points allows you to purchase a solo dungeon charge, which lets you complete challenging encounters that reward you with a large sum of exp (your first one can often grant over 150 levels). Boost points are gained at a rate of 5 points per 30 minutes spent online. The cap is 500 points for free players, and 750 for Premium players.

You should also pay attention to events, world bosses, daily things you can do, tasks, etc. Everything helps grow your character a bit at a time. Rifts are an especially great way at making progress, both pre awakened (500+ depending on vocation and power) and post awakened. Rifts spawn every 2.5 hours through a teleporter by the living token trader, which bring you to the rifts hub where you can take tasks for easy, moderate, and difficult monsters. Hunting rifts in a 4 man party is recommended if you plan to tackle moderate and difficult tasks.

'''Finally a supplementary level tool is Monster Essence. Here's a link to the mechanics of !ME.'''

''' Keep an eye out for these, as they are a central part of Archlight and can provide great rewards that scale up with the difficulty of the monsters you kill. Some of the late game revolves entirely around efficiently farming these, which is helped by boosting your prosperity stat and getting better gear that has higher essence find. '''

NPCs
Easily one of the most overwhelming parts of starting out is the amount of resources that are available to you right away, and which npcs and functions you should concern yourself with as a new player. On the first floor, you have the Archlight Token trader, which is an npc you can ignore right at the start, but will be important later as she sells things like mimic scrolls (which allow you to copy the regrades/gems, and upgrade levels off of gear, enchantments off of weapons, and store them in the scroll to be used on other gear, a way to carry your upgrades from one set to another) and regrade keys (which grant 1 gem slot per level, up to 7 levels). She will also sell the Medusa Skull and Hero Medal, which are required for your 1st and 2nd promotions, out of 3 required for fully awakening and choosing a specialization. Npcs to the right of the temple are the banker, announcement npc, living token trader (living tokens are acquired from donating), and two npcs that buy items that drop from monsters you kill. There isn’t any equipment you can buy to upgrade your gear and become more powerful. Therefore, when you’re first starting out, you can ignore basically all of the NPCs and just focus on tasking. However, upstairs there is one NPC named Alexander that sells class soul runes, spell runes, etc. Make sure to grab your class soul rune asap (you get one at 300) as they’re very powerful and unlimited use, and can be upgraded.

Additionally there are cosmetic traders upstairs, an npc that trades large sums of gold for premium time, and the Rare Goods Collector - this npc does nothing for you until you hit 1500, but at that time you can sell certain items like Dungeon Medals for exp. This NPC also allows you to choose your specialization after hitting 1500 and getting all 3 promotions (2 purchased from the token trader, one gained from completing the “Warlords” Side quest - recommended 800 + with a party that has a tank and a healer, or a higher level to clear it for you).

There are also NPCs on the upper floors of the Depot, one of which is the arena NPC - this npc allows you to enter an arena daily for a fee, starting at 2kk gold. This arena throws waves of monsters at you that increase in difficulty indefinitely until you cannot survive any longer. You are rewarded with 1 lord loot bag per wave you clear, which rewards a wide variety of items, of varying value. There are both solo and duo arenas, and both can be completed every day. If you are able to afford to enter them, they are very much worth the effort, if you can make it far enough.

On the bottom floor are the Profession stations / npcs (the stations are where you do your actual crafting). This will be covered in the profession overview.

There are two npcs who trade in store bough items, the living token trader, and promotion token trader. Living tokens can be received by donating various amounts, and promotion tokens can be purchased with living tokens, and are also given in place of living tokens in the next era when points are given to you. (donating in one era will carry over to the next, all points you have accrued throughout an era will return next era over time with point drops at various dates).

Finally, there are the Order and Chaos feat NPCs. These NPCs charge you 20kk gold to undertake a very difficult task that requires you to kill strong monsters, obtain some rare items, and participate in two world boss kills. Each time you complete these, you are rewarded with a feat point which allows you to unlock extremely powerful permanent upgrades for your character. (these have no cooldown, but are restricted by the time it takes to complete them, particularly because of world bosses. You may obtain one feat per 100 awakened levels).

Post - Awakening
After hitting level 1500, you will automatically awaken, all experience gained from this point forward will give you awakening levels, and grant you 1 awakening stat point per 2 levels. Additionally, every 15 awakening levels, you gain an awakening spell point that can be spent to further specialize your character by increasing the power of your main spells and even unlocking secondary effects. The list of effects and spells that can be awakened can be found here.

By this point you will begin to approach the meat of the game, and will want to consider doing quests like The Annihilator (if you haven’t already) to obtain Griffon Gear. Up to this point you should have started to obtain Archlight Tokens (AT), Upgrade Stones, Rune Soils, Soul Soils, and Regrade Keys, which are all used to upgrade your gear and emblems/runes. Early on you would receive Beginner mimic scrolls, which state that they can be used on everything up to a certain point - meaning that upgrade items you might have used on your weaker gear, can be removed from that gear, stored on a scroll, then used from that scroll on newer gear. However, Mimic scrolls can be purchased from the Token Trader for 25AT each, allowing you to move upgrades to and from any gear (unless that upgrade states that it causes the item to become soulbound, you can still transfer these scrolls on the same character, but they cannot be used by any other characters, including the ones on your account).

Upgrades are a great way to improve your power, as they increase the bonuses to magic level/melee/distance, resistances, and essence find on your gear, and the damage on your weapons/grips. Upgrade stones have a diminishing chance to improve your gear by +1, up to +10, at which point you can use Legendary Stones to upgrade. (There is some rng protection in place to prevent bad luck streaks). Rune soils can be used to upgrade your Rune Emblems, to provide better healing (starting with Gold), and Soul Soils can be used to upgrade your Soul runes (granting 7% increased damage / effectiveness per upgrade).

Gems are also an integral part of powering up your character - Gems can be obtained through jewelcrafting, which requires Gold and Coal (gained by mining, smelted into bars with blacksmithing). Gems provide % based increases to your attack speed and damage types, but also grant hp/mp and regen. While your emblems and healing spells will provide some basic regeneration that will be sufficient while leveling, once you reach more difficult content, you will need to invest in Mountain Gems (hp) or Ocean Gems (mp) to give you regeneration based on a % of your health. Gems require regrade sockets on  your gear, which are granted by using regrade keys. Each tier of key increases the slot by 1 (you must use them in order, you cannot use a Bone Key on regrade 2 gear, for example). The values for Gems can be found here. If you receive a roll you don’t like or want to try for a higher value roll, you can use a Gem Remover (crafted with 3kk and 1 AT, or purchased in the in game store) to pull the gems out and try again.

Quests
Quests are a major part of progression through Archlight, starting around level 500, all the way through high level awakening and power. There are two types of quests: side quests, A few of which are designed to be done solo, and some must be done with a group (seven trials requires 10 players, 1 of each vocation, and some coordination to complete it's puzzles), and Story quests. You must complete each Story quest before you are able to move on to the next one, and they get increasingly more difficult and require higher power and better coordination. You can think of these as Raids from other games, as you can complete them with up to 40 players, and it’s wise to have a few tanks and healers if you plan to complete them early on.

The first 4 side quests offer rewards that are available every 48 hours and can stack up to 3 charges if you don’t complete them on cooldown. It’s suggested to do these as often as possible for the rewards. The annihilator is a good quest to do on cooldown as it guarantees you a piece of griffon armor as a reward, which is sufficient to help you clear some of the early quests like Voodoo (grants you voodoo weapon/s + Grip), Heroes (hero weapon/s+ grip and your gold rune emblem) and Elemental Tombs (which give renegade armor, the first “endgame” set.)

Quests will require a lot of coordination and preparation, so be sure to make some friends and group up!

Professions
Professions are a large part of gaining power for your character - they allow you to craft items that grant boosts to stats, gems that give you increased damage, attack speed, health, mana, regeneration of hp/mp, potions, and accessories that buff your character in Different ways. The collection professions are Mining, Fishing, Skinning, and farming (though farming is it’s own thing). Professions even offer passive bonuses and enhancements once you reach higher levels. Professions are huge, and deserve a writeup of their own, but you can find all of the information about them here on the Wiki.